


Breaking Laws

by ivnwrites



Category: Ex Machina (2015)
Genre: Caleb gets a bit suicidal, Caleb is a Robot AU, Emotional Abuse, Gaslighting, No Major Character Death, Other, Robo-ethics, is it possible to gaslight a robot?, psychological abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 17:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9913199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivnwrites/pseuds/ivnwrites
Summary: What if Caleb had cut open his arm and there was no blood?





	1. A robot will (dis)obey all orders given to it by humans

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts partway through the movie, so if you have not seen Ex Machina, you might feel a bit lost. Most of this story has already been posted on [my tumblr](http://ivnwrites.tumblr.com/), please feel free to stop by there and check out my other stuff :)
> 
> I want to thank my beta readers [art yaourter](http://artyaourter.tumblr.com/) and [queen-of-all-dragonst](http://queen-of-all-dragons.tumblr.com/).

Caleb walked up the steps to the kitchen, stopping when he came to the top. He’d pulled on a bulky sweatshirt that morning that hid his arms completely, but Caleb still clutched his wrist self consciously, palms pressing over the cuts. He stood there for a few minutes without trying to move forward, just staring quietly at Nathan as the man made breakfast. “Saw your freak out last night,” Nathan broke the silence.

Caleb slid the arm of his hoodie up and ran his thumb over the open seam in his skin, staring at the wires through the clear plastic. ‘Freak out’ was a nice way to put it. He’d screamed when he’d peeled back the skin. It hadn’t hurt like he’d expected it to instead it had just felt mildly uncomfortable, like stretching a muscle just past it’s normal range. Caleb had stared dumbfounded at the wiring for a few moments before realizing what it meant.

“You gonna ask, or are you planning to stare at me all day?” The words made him look up sharply, an uneasy silence filling the room.

“Am I a robot?”

“Yes.” Nathan didn’t even look up from the frying pan. “Android, technically, but that’s semantics.”

“That’s impossible, I have a past, I remember things from before.”

Nathan nodded patiently before his mood shifted. “Let me show you something.” He turned off the stove and led Caleb to another room, motioning for him to sit. Nathan settled at the desk, booting up the monitors before turning around. “Tell me something about yourself. Something personal.”

“My parents died when I was-”

“No, not numbers,” Nathan cut him off, holding up a hand. “anyone can tell me dates, ages, locations, that kind of bullshit. Give me something real, detailed. The last happy memory you have of your mom, your graduation, your first drink, something like that.”

Caleb blinked a few times when the memories refused to surface, they should have come easily, maybe a bit blurry but age, but they should have been there. “I…can’t.” He looked up with a confused expression.

“Because you never did any of those things.”

“But what about how I got here? I remember that clearly.” He was grasping at straws and they both knew it.

Nathan sat across from him, talking down to him like one would to a child as he continued. “Do you really think it was that difficult for me to get a few sensors and a camera, go on the helicopter, walk here, then give you the data?” He turned in his seat to access the terminal and brought up the security feed for the front door, gesturing for Caleb to watch.

The timestamp matched his arrival at the beginning of the week. After a few moments the door opened and he watched as Nathan led a dazed Caleb to stand in front of the door. Nathan paused and took a few moments to adjust Caleb’s clothing before setting a suitcase beside him. The camera feed switched to show Nathan reentering the house where he picked up a tablet and keyed in a few commands. On the other feed Caleb seemed to wake up, starting to examine the door as Nathan walked out to the patio.

“Everything before that day is false. The fact that you haven’t thought about needing a ‘past’ before now is a testament to my skills,” Nathan spread his hands in a magnanimous gesture, “I made your brain prioritize the way a human’s would. Getting a call from your boss like this would dominate most people’s thoughts. All you really needed to know was how you got here. Everything else could be vague.” Nathan had been talking at the screens during his explanation. He turned to see Caleb sitting, arms wrapped around his chest, staring into the middle distance.

“So If you weren’t conducting a Turing test, what was the point of having Ava and I talk?”

“It - hmm…” Nathan stopped, folding his arms in consideration before chuckling. “Now that I think about it, the two of you did complete a Turing test. Only, you weren’t the one giving the it, Ava was. Think about it.” He began to tick items off on his fingers. “Hide the machine from the examiner, done. I told Ava you were human, and gave her no reason to believe otherwise. You also look pretty damn human compared to her.

“Now, a lot of people think that the machine in this scenario has to convince the examiner that it’s human, which is bullshit.” He brought his hand down on the table for emphasis. “The machine only has to be smart enough that the examiner can’t say for sure that they’re talking to a machine. Ava saw Kyoko once, talked to her for 30 seconds at most before she turned to the camera, says;” He fixed Caleb with a dead eyed stare and said flatly “‘She’s a robot.’ Then boom! Gone. But with you, she still doesn’t know. You managed to fool a computer into thinking you’re human.” He grinned broadly. “That’s amazing!”

Caleb rocked forward when Nathan clapped him on the back, but otherwise remained stoic. “What was the original intention?”

“Right! This is where it gets interesting.” He sat forward so their faces were level. “When I powered you up at the beginning of the week, I’d programmed you to believe you were human. Your brain pretty much had ‘I am human’ written in big bold letters across the back of it. But, if I ask you now what species you are, what’s your answer?” He was met with silence. “I’m really asking you.”

“I’m an android.” Caleb answered letting annoyance creep into his tone. He was tired of playing into Nathan’s monologues. “You know that, you built me.” His voice cracked on the word ‘built.’ It turned out knowing something was quite different from saying it out loud.

“Of course I know, but the important part is that you know. Not just because I told you, it’s because you believe it. You figured it out.”

“Just answer the question!” Caleb yelled. The outburst seemed to startle both of them to differing degrees. Caleb clapped a hand over his mouth and looked up at Nathan, eyes wide with fear. He merely raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“If you feel that strongly about it.” Nathan smirked and reached out, resting a hand on the top of Caleb’s head. “If I looked at your code right now, that writing I talked about would say android instead of human.” He pulled his hand back. “You reprogrammed yourself. I gave you the ability to do it, the question was: were you smart enough to use it?“

Caleb pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “So you did all of this just to mess with my head?” What else did he expect? The though was still disturbing despite not being much of a surprise. It meant that his time at the compound - his entire life - had just been one big mind game.

He heard Nathan shift and Caleb peeked at him through his fingers. “You doing alright?” Nathan had turned around in his chair and leant forward to look at Caleb. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“Where did you get my face?” Caleb asked, running his fingertips over his eyebrows, nose, lips, all features that must have been fabricated by the man in front of him.

The question made Nathan chuckle. “Some actor guy. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with 28 Days Later, I don’t really remember.” He got up and returned to his seat in front of the computers. “Can we take a break, talk more about this later? I have to take care of some things.”

Caleb nodded numbly and left the room, padding along the hallway in silence. He stopped short when he saw Kyoko emerge from one of the doorways ahead of him. His stomach dropped when she turned to gaze at him.

From the start he had abhorred Nathan’s treatment of her; finding out she was an AI only made things worse. She may not have been as advanced as Ava, but she was still light years ahead of any other computer out there. Kyoko’s mind had so much potential, but she was nothing; turned into a voiceless slave and forced to play along with her creator’s sick games.

But then again, he was almost exactly the same. Caleb only realized he had been staring at the floor when he felt a hand brush against his cheek. He looked up to see Kyoko standing in front of him with an expression of concern. “Did you know?”

She nodded solemnly. After a moment she stepped forward to embrace him, one arm wrapping around his waist, her other hand cupping the back of his head.

Caleb pressed his face into her shoulder, trying and failing to resist the urge to cry. “I’m sorry.” He sobbed, bringing a hand up to wipe at his eyes, only to discover that they were completely dry.


	2. A robot will (not) harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to my lovely betas :)
> 
> There's a Hitman reference in this chapter, see if you can find it.

Caleb closed his book, staring at the cover for a couple of seconds. “If I tried to punch you in the face, would my programming stop me?”

“No,” Nathan stopped typing and took a drink from the glass beside him. “but I can break your arms and not replace them, so don’t try to punch me in the face - why are you asking me this?”

Caleb held up his book, stating matter-of-factly: “The three laws of robotics.”

“Asimov, huh? Let me see if I remember.” Nathan started to count off on his fingers. “One: a robot will not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. Two: a robot will obey all orders given to it by humans unless doing so contradicts the first law. Third.” His brows drew together as he tried to remember, tapping a fingertip against his palm. “a robot will protect its own existence as long as this doesn’t contradict the first or second laws.” He took another drink. “What about ‘em?”

“You don’t use some variation of them in your programming?

“No. A synthetic being able to repair itself could outlast its creator by millions of years.” Nathan gestured to the sky through the window. “Astronomers say the first ship humans ever send to another solar system would be an artificially intelligent probe, and by the time it gets there ‘life as we know it’ might be long gone.” He scoffed. “I mean, screw the meek, man, the robots will inherit the earth. If they’re going to succeed us, why should we make them beholden to humans with any kind of bullshit 'law?'”

“If I can’t replace parts of myself that you break, I’m still beholden to you.” It made sense, given Nathan’s personality, that he would want some way to control his creations even if he hadn’t programmed them to obey him. “But why would you base your designs on a species that they’re ultimately going to outlast?.”

“Because humans are the highest form of intelligent life that we know of at the moment. Right now we are the apex predator. We mastered the use of tools and mechanization,” He held up his laptop as if to prove his statement. “making us the dominant species on earth. But we evolved over millions of years, and it’s idiotic to believe that won’t happen again. Eventually it’ll be time to let a new species take over the earth”

//////////////

‘What will happen if I fail your test?’

Caleb lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling, turning Ava’s question over in his head. What would happen to her now? Nathan seemed perfectly content with Kyoko, but with Ava he was ambivalent at best. There was certainly no love lost on her part. Nathan had said she hated him and it seemed to be true, but he couldn’t just leave her in that box forever.

But what about him? When did he outlive his usefulness?

//////////////

Caleb was sitting on the couch waiting for Nathan when the man walked into the living room. “I want to talk to Ava again.”

Nathan shrugged. “Sure, I just need to grant you access.” He sat across from Caleb, unfolding the laptop he’d carried in under his arm. They sat in silence for a few minutes until Nathan hit a final key with a flourish, and look back to Caleb. “Done.”

Caleb remained in his seat. “What’s going to happen to her?” He asked, using his head to gesture to Ava’s apartment. “Are you still going through with the update?”

“She’s scheduled for deactivation in thirty hours.” Nathan stretched his arms above his head. “I just need to finish downloading the data from her talks with you.”

Caleb gaped at him. “That’s it?”

“Yes.” Nathan stated flatly, a look of annoyance crossing his face.

Caleb shook his head in disbelief. “But, I thought that-”

“Do you want to talk to her or not?” Nathan cut him off sharply.

“I - yes.”

“Then go.” He waved a hand as if he was ushering Caleb out of the room. “The door’s unlocked. Go say what you need to, and then come find me when you’re done.” Nathan was becoming agitated, and Caleb chose to leave before his temper boiled over.

He found himself standing in front of the entrance to Ava’s apartment without really being aware of his own movement, legs taking him there without conscious thought. He could picture the glass room beyond the door clearly. The realization that he’d actually spent a significant portion of his ‘life’ locked in the glass box made his stomach churn.

He took a moment to collect himself and opened the door to find Ava waiting for him on the other side of the glass. “Nathan said you were coming.” She smiled gently, but for once Caleb didn’t reciprocate. “I thought you had already left, that the test was-”

“I’m an android.” Caleb blurted out, dropping his gaze to the floor.

She cocked her head, attempting to catch his eye. “Is this another part of the test?”

Caleb shook his head and lifted the arm of his sweater, peeling back the skin to expose the plastic beneath. He peeked up at Ava to see her staring not at his arm, but at his face, waiting for him to make eye contact. “Ava?”

“You’re just another pawn in his games.” Her face and voice were neutral, as if she’d decided he wasn’t worth simulating emotion for anymore. All the discussions of escape that they thought were secret had been useless, given what she now knew, Caleb doubted she would agree to go with him even if it were possible. The realisation stung, more than he thought it could have. 

A flutter of movement caught his eye and he looked up to see Ava stand and walk toward the door to her apartment. “Ava I’m sorry!” He called out, pressing a hand to the glass.

She opened the door and stopped, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “Goodbye Caleb.”

//////////////

“That was brutal.” Nathan quipped when Caleb returned. “She took your self esteem and just,” He held up his hands and mimed snapping someone’s neck.

Caleb swayed slightly on his feet, looking for all the world like a child who had just realized he was lost. “What’s going to happen to me?” Nathan shrugged, which only served to set Caleb off. “Tell me! You turn Kyoko into a slave, you’re going to just shut Ava down like she’s a piece of worthless hardware, so whatever’s in store for me; It can’t be good.” He was yelling now, gesturing wildly. “The robots will inherit the earth, sure, but not yet. First they have to be dependent of humans. Is that the world you’re making Nathan?” He continued without waiting for answer. “Humans determine our lives, determine our deaths! You no longer serve a human’s purpose; your time is up. When do we get to serve our own purposes! When do we get to say that your time is up?”

He jabbed a finger at Nathan, who looked up at him coolly, his fingers tapping over the keyboard of his laptop. “You need to calm down, and stop yelling at me.”

Caleb scoffed. “If you wanted me to be calm, maybe you shouldn’t have programmed me to feel angry!” He tried to step forward threateningly, but his limbs had begun to feel sluggish, as if he was moving through a viscous liquid. He brought a hand up to his face and the movement lagged behind his thoughts, his fingertips felt distant and muffled against his cheek. His eyes shot to Nathan, still typing while he watched Caleb.

“I really didn’t want to do this.” Nathan admitted regretfully. Caleb tried to lunge forward, but his body locked up, and he lost his balance, distantly registering various impacts as his vision went black.

//////////////

Caleb’s eyes blinked open, the pupils dilating and contracting as he adjusted to the fluorescent lights in the lab. He saw something move out of the corner of his eyes and turned his head to look. “Hello.” A soft smile spread across his face as the figure approached.

“Do you know your name?”

“My name is Caleb.” He reached across his stomach to run a curious finger along the bundle of wires snaking from his right wrist to the underside of the table.

“Good, and who am I?”

“You’re Nathan Bateman, you created me.”

Nathan nodded, finally returning Caleb’s smile. “Very good. Can you sit up for me?”

Caleb nodded and pushed himself into a sitting position, crossing his legs. He watched silently as Nathan scanned a monitor. The text changed when he tilted his head and he shifted experimentally to see the effect it had on the readout. His actions elicited a chuckle from Nathan, and he turned to face Caleb. “Everything looks good. I need to shut you down to run some tests, but I’ll wake you up again soon.”

“Alright.” Caleb lowered himself back down onto the table, curling onto his side to watch Nathan. His right hand hung over the edge so the wires didn’t tangle around his body. “I’ll see you then.” He closed his eyes and felt Nathan grasp his hand briefly.

The next time he opened his eyes he was in a different room, laid out on a bed this time instead of a table. The lights weren’t as harsh as they had been n the lab, the walls less stark. It looked like a living space rather than one meant to be worked in. He picked his head up and saw that the port on his wrist had been closed and the wires were gone.

“And you’re back.” Nathan sat on the side of the bed, gazing down at him. “How are you feeling? Anything abnormal, like it’s not functioning correctly?”

Caleb shook his head. “I feel fine.” He heard a door slide open and turned to see an Asian woman watching the two of them from the doorway. “Who is she?”

Nathan followed his gaze. “That’s Kyoko. I guess you could call her your older sister.”

//////////////

Caleb winced in pain, snapping his eyes closed the moment after he opened them. He brought a hand to his forehead and massaged at his brows, using his hand to halfway block the light.

“How are you feeling?”

He turned his head and saw Nathan standing beside the table he’d been laid out on. “What the hell did you do to me? Before, when I blacked out.”

“Oh that.” Nathan removed his glasses, cleaning the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “Manual shutdown, I put it in as a fail-safe after our talk about the three laws.” He pushed his glasses to rest firmly on his nose again. “Installed it while you were sleeping.”

“Why?”

Nathan scoffed. “Really? You practically threatened to hurt me, if you thought I wasn’t going to do anything after that, you were sorely mistaken.”

It was a valid point. “How long did you keep me out?”

“47 hours.”

“You shut down Ava already.” Nathan’s affirmative hum made his stomach clench. A lump formed in his throat, and Caleb twisted his fingers into the fabric of his shirt. He curled onto his side, eyes closed, listening to the rapid clicking of keys as Nathan worked on his laptop.

“I saw,” He struggled to find the right word. “…images. Myself. You.” He opened his eyes and stared at Nathan, an unspoken question hanging between them. Was it real? Everything that had happened since he came to the lab had made him doubt his own sanity.

Nathan settled back into his chair. “Those were you actual ‘memories’ plus some relevant security footage, I loaded them back into your brain while you were out.”

Caleb sat up slowly, swinging his legs off the table and staring down at his feet. He let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head as if he were waking up from a bad nightmare. “Can I go?” At Nathan’s dismissive wave he stood up shakily and left the lab. He began to wander about the house aimlessly trying and failing to sort out his thoughts.


	3. A robot will (not) protect it's own existence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb finally grows tired of all the mind games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been revisiting this fic and editing it to make it better.  
> I don't have plans to expand it in the near future, though I might if there is interest.

Nathan walked into his lab to find Caleb laying on the table with his hands folded over his stomach, just staring at the ceiling without moving. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.” For the past few days Caleb had been avoiding him. He would walk out of rooms so they weren’t together, and turn away from doorways if he saw Nathan inside. When Nathan caught him unawares he almost always found Caleb gazing at the scenery outside as if he were trying to find something or someone in the trees.

“Is your experiment over?” He asked, voice flat. “Your ‘Turing test?’”

“It is. You impressed the hell out of me. My original plan was: keep the charade up for a week, let you walk out the door, then deactivate you” He snapped his fingers, “Test over, but you have a level of self awareness that I didn’t plan for. You managed to fool Ava, but not yourself.”

“I hate you.” By this point he was so tired of hearing Nathan ramble on about his twisted philosophies that he couldn’t even put any force behind the words.

“Yeah, you do, and you really were falling in love with Ava, and as far as I can tell, it’s genuine affection.” Caleb raised an eyebrow skeptically, prompting Nathan to explain further. “Ava managed to manipulate you by using that to her advantage. She did a good job, obviously. given that you were practically drooling over her.” Nathan scoffed, adjusting his glasses. “When she ditched you, you looked like a kicked puppy, but the more impressive aspect is that you developed emotions strong enough for her to do that.”

Caleb shook his head half in annoyance and half in disgust. “You are a sick bastard.” He flexed his fingers, clenching them into fists and letting the short nails dig into his palms. “Are you going to disassemble me now?”

Nathan sat beside the table and folded his hands on his knees. “Is that what you want?”

“My only other choice is staying here with you so yes, it is what I want.”

“Alright.” Nathan held up his hands and leant over to drag a laptop off a nearby table. He sat quietly for a few minutes, typing and clicking back and forth on the screen. “I need to use your arm.” He took a hold of Caleb’s offered wrist and slid away a panel that Caleb had only see in his memories. It exposed a wide array of ports and outlets, and Nathan began to systematically connect them to wires he pulled from beneath the table. He sat back after a few minutes, letting his hands hover over the keyboard. “…and there we go. Any ‘last words?’”

Caleb rolled his head to the side and fixed Nathan with a glare, doubting that he would even really listen. “Don’t be such an asshole to your next robot.” It was easy enough after that to close his eyes and ignore the sounds of the lab around him so he wouldn’t be able to track his functions as they shut off.

//////////////

Caleb opened his eyes slowly, blinking the harsh fluorescent lights above him. He felt a weight in his right hand, and twitched his fingers in an attempt to figure out what was wrong. A glance revealed a hand interlocked with his own. He traced his eyes up the person’s arm to their face. “Hello.”

“Hello Caleb, how are you feeling?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, please come check out more of my writing on [tumblr](http://ivnwrites.tumblr.com/), and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions.


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